Former minister Jeremy Browne says the Liberal Democrats – and the country –
would benefit from a stronger dose of liberalism. He outlines his vision

Ten years ago, a group of Liberal Democrats produced a landmark text on the future of liberalism. The Orange Book became the reference point for those who wanted to resist a drift towards Labour, in the days when a coalition with the Conservatives was unimaginable. Nick Clegg was one of the authors, who were seen as Right-wing insurgents against the then Leftish leader, Charles Kennedy.

A decade on, it is Mr Clegg who is being “insurged” against, this time by Jeremy Browne, who was sacked as a minister by Mr Clegg six months ago. He has put his enforced freedom to use by writing his own book on the state of liberalism and what it should aspire to after four years of compromise with the Tories. This book, too, has the potential to become an essential work that will challenge the leadership.

The Lib Dem leader’s complaint against Mr Browne is that, after turns in the Foreign Office and the Home Office, he was no use as a minister. What he meant was that Mr Browne didn’t do enough to advance the Lib Dem cause by “differentiating” them from the Conservatives. He was, in effect, deemed to be a bit of a Tory.

When we meet, the MP for Taunton Deane has shaved the magnificent Edwardian beard he had cultivated on the back benches – an indication, perhaps, that it is back to business and the serious work of politics. His book Race Plan, subtitled An authentic liberal plan to get Britain fit for 'The Global Race’, is a tightly argued plea for a more ambitious liberalism. It is also a warning to our political classes of the urgent necessity to get fit for the global race against the new powerhouses of Asia that David Cameron talks about. Mr Browne says it is now “the overwhelming issue of our time”. This global revolution defines all politics. “We will all be measured as politicians by what answers we come up with. How do we make our country successful over the coming generations?”

With power and influence shifting to Asia, it is not pre-ordained that Britain will retain its place in the world rankings. “Those countries that refuse to take the necessary measures will be left behind,” he says. “My anxiety is that our political discourse is just far too timid and insular. We are not facing up to the magnitude of our predicament.”

Despite his sacking, he says he is an enthusiastic supporter of the Coalition. But it is too cautious: “It’s going on the right lines but at the wrong speed,” he says. What it needs are decisiveness, ambition and conviction politicians capable of taking the difficult decisions needed to make us competitive. Britain, he says, must rediscover the pioneering spirit that made it successful.

The implication is that the current government under David Cameron and Nick Clegg is failing. “The Government has allowed itself to default into timidity,” he says. “I’m of the view that the most credible answer to the question 'How does Britain deal more confidently with global risk?’ is unbridled, unambiguous, authentic liberalism.”

What does that mean? His book details prescriptions that are unequivocally liberal, and would delight a Tory. It is hard to read this book and conclude that allowing Ed Miliband into government is Mr Browne’s answer to the problem. On education in particular, his ideas go further than Michael Gove. He wants longer school days, more catch-up classes, all schools to be free schools and free to make a profit, and school vouchers to enable parents to exercise greater choice. On infrastructure he not only backs HS2 but wants to know why it will take until 2033 for a high-speed train to reach Leeds. He backs Boris Johnson’s ambition for a new London hub airport in the Thames estuary. Work should already be under way: “Instead, we have a commission.”

And on the economy his ideas should make George Osborne blush. He wants a greater emphasis on the value of wealth creation, a smaller state, an end to what he calls “soft economic paternalism”. He opposes the idea of a “living wage” and wants to stop the ring-fencing of government spending. He says the highest 50p rate of tax should have been abolished altogether, rather than reduced to “the messy compromise of 45p”.

He wants free market liberalism that supports wealth creation, entrepreneurship and hard work, but his party isn’t providing it. “I am certain in my own mind that authentic, unleashed liberalism is what Britain needs. The problem my party has is that we lack the confidence to champion that, despite having liberal in our title. That contributes to our chronic weakness in the eyes of the public, who are uncertain what we stand for.”

Mr Browne’s unequivocal critique of the party under Mr Clegg comes at a dangerous time for the Lib Dems. Their support has collapsed to single figures in the polls, encouraging fears among the grassroots of a wipeout at the general election. There are already predictions that the party will lose all its 12 MEPs in the European elections next month, as a result of a surge by the UK Independence Party.

Mr Clegg tried to stem the tide by challenging Nigel Farage to two debates on Britain’s place in Europe, but was judged to have been beaten. His allies point out, though, that in the post-debate polls he scored substantially higher than the party’s current standing, and he may have won credit for daring to challenge the anti-European consensus.

Mr Clegg is intent on making his party the unavoidable coalition partner for Tories or Labour in the event of another hung parliament next year. He has fought off relentless criticism from the Left of the party, discreetly from Vince Cable within government, and more openly from the ambitious party president, Tim Farron. Mr Browne’s book is a direct reply to Mr Farron’s campaign to draw the party back towards its social democrat, Labour‑sympathising traditions.

The Lib Dems struggle because they offer themselves as the mid-point between Tories and Labour, he says. “We are telling the voters that we offer either diluted socialism or diluted conservatism. We are the diluting agent. The party shows resilience and fortitude, given the battering we have had. But we have defaulted, instead to trying to cause the least offence to the most people. We have sold ourselves as a brake in government, rather than an accelerator.”

It is hard, then, not to see this as a direct attack on Mr Clegg. Yet Mr Browne’s time among the diplomats of the Foreign Office has had its effect. “He is a natural liberal who has felt the need to meet his detractors halfway and, as a result, has blurred his definition,” he says of his leader. His greatest criticism is that the party under Mr Clegg has decided it is neither Right nor Left, but exists only “to moderate the views of people who have views”.

Mr Browne is particularly critical of the decision to set up a party committee to negotiate another coalition before its 2015 manifesto has even been written. “Our lack of self-confidence and our willingness to be defined as being a party of timid centrists, rather than bold liberals, means people look at us and may be reassured that we will be a brake on the other two, but that’s hardly a reason to vote for us. Nick Clegg took a risk to take us from being a party of protest to a party of government, but we look like we’ve turned into a party of protest in government.”

Mr Clegg and his ally Danny Alexander are likely to dismiss Race Plan as an attention-seeking device from an MP who was once touted as an heir to the square-jawed political style of Paddy Ashdown. Mr Browne will counter that the polls prove his point: that by offering his party as the permanent junior partner, dependent on others for the ministerial cars and red boxes, Mr Clegg has erased its distinct identity, and the voters have punished him for it.

Like The Orange Book, RacePlan is an attempt to stop the Lib Dems drifting to the Left and irrelevance. Its publication will make his colleagues nervous, but Mr Browne believes a dose of “unchecked liberalism” is “the answer to our national predicament”.